Body Positive Blogger Says ‘I Jiggle for Joy Every Day’ After Being Suicidal as a College Student – Mind & Body

Body positive advocate Kate Speer has a special message for everyone: You are fabulous just the way you are.

The 29-year-old blogger and mental health advocate garnered a lot of attention last week with a high-energy, dance-filled Instagram video of herself doing a “jiggle for joy.”

“This is your weekly reminder that just as you are, you are fabulous,” Speer said in the clip as she danced around the room. In the caption, Speer noted that she had been struggling with body image during the week, and posted then deleted the video seven times.

Now, Speer, of Norwich, Vermont, tells PEOPLE that she ultimately left up the clip because, after years of struggling with mental illness, she is happy to be alive.

“There are no words for my gratitude, so when I am super psyched, I jiggle for joy — literally happens every single day,” she says. The inspirational video has been viewed more than 126,000 times on the social media site and has amassed more than 3,000 “likes.”

“It is humbling, inspiring and overwhelming all at once,” Speer tells PEOPLE of the positive feedback. “I sobbed last night for a good hour. I sobbed because I’m alive. I sobbed because I am seen.”

“I work in marketing and see firsthand the detrimental mental health results of all the advertising in the summer. I wanted to remind people that raw is beautiful. That you — as you are — no Photoshop, no makeup, no Botox, no nothing, just skin the way it is, the body the way it is — is gorgeous and enough,” she tells PEOPLE.

On her blog, Positively Kate, Speer shares her history with mental illness — “I survived a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, 21 psychiatric hospitalizations, over 50 medication trials and 4 years of constant suicidality.”

Now, “I am here to love and live the hell out of that second chance” at life, Speer wrote in a post on her site.

She adds to PEOPLE: “Truth be told, I post everything for me as much as I post it for everyone else. We all need these reminders. We are worthy, enough and beautiful — JUST AS WE ARE.